Silent Hill (Japanese, Hepburn: Sairento Hiru is a horror media franchise centered on a series of survival horror video games, created by Keiichiro Toyama, developed and published by Konami, and published by its subsidiary Konami Digital Entertainment. The first four video games in the series, Silent Hill, Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 3 and Silent Hill 4
The Room, were developed by an internal group called Team Silent, a development staff within former Konami subsidiary Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo. The later six games, Origins, Homecoming, Shattered Memories, Downpour, Book of Memories and P.T. (a Silent Hills playable teaser), were developed by others. The Silent Hill franchise has expanded to include various print pieces, two feature films, and spin-off video games.
Silent Hill is set in the series’ eponymous fictional American town. The series is heavily influenced by the literary genre of psychological horror, with its player characters being mostly “everymen”.1
The first installment in the series follows Harry Mason as he searches for his missing adopted daughter in the mysterious town of Silent Hill. Stumbling upon a cult conducting a ritual to revive a deity it worships, Harry discovers his daughter’s true origin. Multiple game endings are possible, depending on in-game actions taken by the player. It was released in 1999 for the PlayStation. In 2009, the game became available for download from the European PlayStation Network store for the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation Portable and later, in the same year, from the North American PlayStation Network store.